The other day I was asked by mail, whether I could do a small (700 word) job, upon which I answered:
"Well, considering that I will be fined (TP calls that "handling fee") about 20 USD AND the bank will charge me 15 USD for putting the money into my account AND another fee for converting the funny printed paper called USD into YEN ... amounting to something like 40 USD ... I do not think there is much incentive for me to do your work."
Response from TP:
"I understand, I can give you 60 USD if you can make it now. It is a short file, is it fine?"
My response:
"YOU give me 60 USD and I have to pay you+Bank = 40 USD.
That leaves me with 20 USD.
For - calculate generously - 3.5 pages. That is 5.7 USD per page.
Would/could YOU work for that kind of money and still pay your rent???????"
Response from TP:
"Ah, sorry, I misunderstood that.
It is fine, I understand now.
Anyway, you don´t have to invoice every PO individually.
In other words, the best thing to do, in my opinion, is to get several POs, and when the amount is high enough you invoice all of them together, so you only lose 20 or 40 dollars for all of them together."
Isn't that wonderful! If I work for a Japanese company - they too are impertinent enough to bill me for the bank transfer! - I have to pay something between 1 and 5 USD. If I work for Transperfect I have to pay ***** ONLY ***** 10 times as much -> about 40 USD. Since they have a minimum for bank transfer of about 100 USD, that is I have to PAY them 40% of what should be the money I get for my work.
The percentage would change, if I would get let's say 10,000 USD (VERY!! unlikely), but even then would the bank fees be still 10 times as high as in Japan. Or when working for other companies anywhere in the world for that matter.
This strikes me as odd.
Is it only me?
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